Re: Curbing inflation

Don't get rid of the banking system, it doesn't realy change anything but give a little bit back, which is what new ppl need. Inflation will contunue even if the bank system was removed.

 

Well... in truth the interest system favors those with more money, not less.

I'd be more in favor of the moderators simply giving out more minerals on a more structured basis, which is what I'm trying to do.

You guys would make more money that way anyway and it would encourage positive posting.

 

Yeah, I'm going to be that guy...god help me....

If you wanna get rid of the bank then go for it. It was useful back when minerals could be stolen, but now it's useless. It hurts new members. They put in minerals and when they withdrawal them they get smacked with a 15 mineral fee. Even if they muster up 1000 minerals it takes 15 days so that they jsut don't loose money. On the other side, the experienced members get a lot of mineral that they don't really need. You can only buy so many pets, or can you? Anyways, the only people its really helps, and its removal would hurt, are the middle people like coreyb, who makes a much needed 12 minerals a day.

Plus, there was a thread on this and people gave many great suggestions on replacements. My favorite was that the interest workers became gathers that got you a set amount of minerals each day.

 

im just a mere weakling so i would be utterly broke if you removed the banking system (and please give consideration in increasing bonuses and interests)

 

I'm trying to safe for the later pets, and the bank is being very helpful, currently earning me 5 min a day. It would be disapointing to see the interest go away, if that were to happen, might as well get rid of the bank entirely. I like the bank and hope the .1% interest isn't taken away from us.

 

I understand your position but bear in mind that stopping (or at least slowing down) inflation is the primary concern here and not the wellbeing of members.

I personally wouldn't mind the removal of the bank, I don't collect minerals as much as I used to... if I do get a nice sum, I buy things.

 

how about something like, the more min you have in the bank, the lower your interest rate is, you would still gain min, but at a slower rate than you would get now.

 

That wouldn't make much sense. The fixed amount gained sounds better.

 

When I first joined this forum, the bank interest was orginally 2%. So everytime I collect 100 minerals from posting, I put them in the bank with an increase of minerals at 1 mineral a day. So when I banked a total of about 500, I was happy when the increase was 5 a day. Then everyday I am always at the arcade (back then, you get a 1000 mineral bonus every 2 weeks if you're champion in a game, so if you're champion in 4 games for example, you get 4000 after the 2 week period). When I was handsomely awarded after the 2 week period (I think I got 2000 minerals then), I immediately stored the minerals in the bank hoping to further increase flow of minerals by 20 a day.

2 days later, a news from the forum admin came stating that the bank interest was reduced to a mere 0.1% and introduced the worker units. I was sore the moment I read the news and I calculated how much would I gather a day and got the result of 2 minerals a day. Then I put extra effort on posting (not to mention I finally participated at the riddle thread) and playing at the arcade. I managed to make it to 5000 minerals and hadmy first items (reaper, which was 900 minerals then, frame and name color) then a news broke out that champions of arcades will now automatically be awarded. By then, I managed to save 18000 minerals in the bank for playing arcade and I also have around 2000 worth of minerals on my pocket. Sadly, increase of minerals on my bank was only 18 a day.

I don't really know how the hell I get so unlucky on the bonuses and always thought if the admin was messing around with me and some of the members with circumstances like me or worse. It sickes me whenever I also saw some members with a very high bonus interest who doesn't even deserve such things. I also see so many people, particularly the new members, who also deserve those but we're only treated like mediocres and only have a small amount of bonus interest or maybe none at all.

I'm, however, quite glad seeing some moderators, such as Joneagle_X, who is recently taking time giving bonus minerals to excellent posts from great people.

EDIT: Edited out my bad posts. Sorry. I would like to discuss my suggestions to stop inflation but I'll do it later coz I'm going somewhere.

 

Agreed, as I have realized, the banking system helps those who don't need it. Those who start have a very hard time making minerals as they struggle with arcade games and making their way into arguments with more experienced forum members.

The only way the new members can make any kind of money is to do what I did and post on everything I had any knowledge about, and managing to scrape a few championships in the arcade, banking anything I earned and no touch it until I had made more than the 15 min fee.

The fee also hurts new members who don't earn enough in interest to make it worth storing money. The fee is useless against those with over 10K in the bank because they make almost the fee amount in 1 day. Unfortunately, I don't have any ideas on how the admin can make it easier for new members

 

The problem here lise in the fact that more currency is being made out of thin air. For an economy to work correctly the production of money has to be regulated where it changes hands more and the only creation happens very slowly as a product of things like interest.

Even things such as loans use pre-existing money: that of the depositers.



I do agree though the fee has to go since the point of a bank is to have a safe place to store your money as it grows slowly (emphasis on the safe part) and the fee overcompensates for the interest.

 

Here are some of my suggestions on how to stop inflation.

I don't agree on selling only one of your item of each kind because this will also cause inflation. For example, I want to sell my 3 probes. Although competition for selling the item is intense, buyers are still more plentiful. If each person can only sell one kind of item at a time, people would tend to fight over a certain kind of item. This may trigger the seller to increase his prices cause he knows there are so many people who wants to buy a particular item. My suggestion is we could still sell multiple items of the same kind but instead of spamming the trade center we should set one icon of the same kind e.g. probex4. This would solve spamming problems as well as inflation problems.

But on the other hand, who would fight over a damn probe? XD

I also agree on a suggestion I have read somewhere in this section about controlling members from hoarding all the items and selling them at a higher price. This is monopolizing and this is unfair and this is one of the major causes of inflation.

 

About your monopalizing issue, do you think controlling how much each member is allowed to buy of each item would fix this problem. I think it would work, but cause a negative impact on the tradeing as a whole.

 

Monopolizing is one of the major causes of inflation so stoping it is going to help control raising prices. I don't mean that a person is only allowed to buy only one kind of item. What I'm saying is he could buy the same kind of item but will have to wait for a certain time for the member to buy that item again.

 

Look at it a different way--the economy is "producing" things so everyone is naturally getting richer. The free market will provide the solution to this and other problems, as it always has and always will. All hail the market! Make a straight path for it to travel! Allelujah its glory reigns!

When new people come and have nothing, let them keep on with the bank system, and let them earn their way to new riches. Heck--they take jobs that other members wouldn't! Give them all brown and tan borders around their avatars for starters, and an "Always Low Prices. Always." button on their signature.

Take it one step further--let particularly rich members "outsource" the creation of new posts--that way new posts can keep coming to the forum 24-7, as little Indian ladies in Bangalore call centers discuss the intersection of Starcraft and henna painting while we Americans sleep.

OK, NOW THE SERIOUS PART OF THIS POST.

Try letting the free market really work. Let members create things, like maps, systems, textures, filters, map reviews, and new icons of their own, and sell them in the forum marketplace. Once I'm done with my SC2 cinematic editor, I'd like to sell it to other members for minerals, say some nominal price like 500. Also, any member could make and sell an icon or border.

The other thing that can be implemented is taxes. Property taxes on your pets--for instance, 1 mineral per Phoenix per day, 5 per Mothership per day, 3 per Thor per day and more if it becomes an antique (luxury tax!). Keep giving out minerals for good posts, keep the banking system in place, keep the competitions giving out reasonable sums of minerals (5000 for a 1st place winner + 2500 shopping spree would be pretty good).

Finally, posting might even deserve a boost in terms of minerals. Like, 0.1 minerals per word. Then, reward posts that stimulate discussion with the same rate for every word that gets entered in a reply by persons other than the origianl thread author.

Do that, and this free market isn't so bad after all.

 

Selling your services is already functioning but on a primitive level.

I have thought about taxing pets and have already mentioned it to sc2 and he said that he was considering introducing something along those lines. But that would create more spam posts because people would be desperate to keep their items.

As for your last suggestion, it's very strange. You brought up good points to fight inflation but the last suggestion destroys it all. Increasing the minerals after posts would create an economic crisis so to speak.

I have an outline of how to resolve this:
1. greatly decrease minerals after posts and the unit should be characters and not words which I've already elaborated on in a previous post. The minerals/character could be even lower than in that post.
2. encourage people to use the "report to mod" feature to help moderators reward good posts.
3. make moderators give out bonuses easier. I have yet to see a fantastic post that's only a few lines long get a bonus... it seems that nowadays only long posts qualify as a "good" post.

This would separate the constructive from the spammer which would in turn ecourage poor people to sell their services/be more contributive and thus raise the overall standard of behaviour and posts.

 

Sorry you didn't like my idea.

I think that your last suggestion, that some particular practice with rewarding posts will or will not raise the level of behavior and quality of posts is difficult to validate. Sure, if you say you'll punish bad posting practices then people will avoid them, but to raise the quality of posts is not something I'm sure you can do.

I think we should concentrate on new ways for members to sell their services, particularly in preparation for when SC2 comes out.

Or, we could make a policy, if you defeat a Korean, you get 1000 minerals and a trophy. And, I mean, if you really whallop one of those guys you get to put an icon of the head of some famous Korean, perhaps Kim Jong Il with PWNED stenciled on his forehead, on your list of items. Now, THAT would get me to play competitively...

 

The problem with inflation has nothing to do with people monopolozing money. The problem lies in the fact that money is peing produced from nothing.

For an economy to function properly money has to change hands constantly. The stuff you buy has to take money to be produced and in turn give a part of that to other people. Since this is not a true economy inflation willl always happen since there is nothing to moderate to increase of wealth

 

So, what are pets good for, exactly, other than getting you mineral bonuses every now and then and making you look powerful and providing eye candy?

Oh, did I just name all the possible reasons to own pets?

 

hmm...pretty much, plus thier just something fun to collect. I'm trying to see how many of the different protoss pets I can get before they're all sold out.


I will have you yet, MS!!!